Sony reveals slim PS3, drops price After months of rumors, leaks and internet fakery, Sony has finally conjured the details on a new slim version of the Playstation 3 and price cuts on existing models. The sleeker PS3 will hit stores September 1 for $300 in North America, Europe, and Asia. Sony also announced it will drop the prices of current 80GB and 160GB …
I don't own a PS3 so forgive my ignorance - the old one had a curved top which made stacking awkward. The slimmer new one appears to have the same feature...
Why ?
I was thinking this new slim PS3 would make a reasonable (£250) Blu Ray player and also allow me to browse on a 1080P TV quite nicely...
"the old one had a curved top which made stacking awkward.
The slimmer new one appears to have the same feature...
Why ?"
Two answers:
1: A curve is the loveliest distance between two points
2: Sony want their baby sitting pretty on top of your other home theater gear or, better yet, on the sideboard, where everyone can see it.
Actually that last point has a practical aspect.... as a device that you will be (it is hoped) needing to get at on a regular basis, to insert/remove game/movie discs etc, there is less need to be able to stow it away in a cabinet with other gear that you only interact with by remote.
For myself, I know this new one is cheaper, but it LOOKS cheaper too. I actually prefer my big, expensive looking one with nice shiny bits. And although my big old beast isn't actually very noisy at all anyway, if this new one runs completely silent (which it would pretty much have to to be considered "quieter" than my current one) then I may be interested.
To clarify - mine spends it's life sitting on it's end. Apart from looking "the business" next to my Bravia TV, the fan does get quite noisy quite quickly in mine when laid flat - I think standing vertically, outside a cabinet, significantly aids the airflow.
But I wouldn't want that cheap, plastic looking slimline one so prominently on display I think.
The bigger news imho is firmware 3.00.
I guess selling almost as many ps2 as ps3s last month was a clue they need this (along with activision CEO saying ps3 is a fail). Going with blueray may be start to pay dividends soon but so far all it did was put them about 20 million units under where they should be due to higher costs. I do like my PS3 but just wish it was made by a company that wasn't ran by a movie studio (note to sony, focus on games for ps line not movies). Still I prefer my xbox 360 for two reasons 1. i know its stupid but I do much prefer the controller on xbox, the triggers on the back were a very rare brilliant move by M$, the ps3 reg buttons on back just don't feel near as good not to mention the whole six axis thing has been a sick sad joke from day 1 (lol Lair anyone). 2. <cough> I have heard whispers it is possible to play the latest greatest titles without having to shell out $60 bucks or anything but blank media for that matter, which is not possible for the PS3</cough> Nobody mentions this fact or talks about it (kind of like the crazy aunt in the closet) but I guarantee morals aside that it has influenced console sale.
"Sony's trimmed-down PS3 will include a 120GB HDD in a package approximately two-thirds smaller and lighter than the original 60GB PS3 model. Power consumption has also been cut by two-thirds courtesy the console's redesigned processors, cooling unit and power supply."
Could you rephrase these poor sentences in English? As it is, it's impossible to tell whether it in each case it is two thirds that has been cut, or two thirds that remain.
Like most modern consoles, they don't want you putting the PS3 in an enclosed space, especially if you intend to stack anything that might generate additional heat on top of it.
Most receivers put out pretty large amounts of heat for example and that would almost certainly kill a PS3 if you put one on top of it in an enclosed audio cabinet. The XBox 360 is even worse.
Same with putting the PS3 or XBox 360 on top of a heat generating device like a receiver. Very bad.
Three hundred dollars in the US ! whats that in Real money down your local asda....
WHAT "They are dropping the "install other OS" option. So no more Linux on the new slimline PS3" are they CRAZY, thats one of the only good reasons to Buy it once your passed the game crazy nights.
and that does nothing to encurrage MS to even consider opening up and vastly expand their virtually non existant media playing 360 capabilitys or codecs that cant even stream or play your basic generic 20Mbit/s+ H@L4.1 HD 1-80p AVC compatable TS, without being converted way down first, SO loosing lots of the original x264 Encoding quality in the process, and LOTs of time to do even that.
will the new PS3 slim at least have a new firmware with MKV streaming playback compatability to play all those over spec BR x264 highest settings Encodes the scene pricks keep using instead of using a perfectly good generic H@L4.1 without a quick container change?
Only reason I'd buy this is to get a blu-ray player. Looks like they've retained the piss-poor PS2 controller. The Xbox360 controller fits so much better in my hands... No, I'm not an M$ fanboi but I acknowledge hardware that fits my comfort and needs. Shit, I use an Xbox360 controller for some PC games cos it just works better with the analogue (yes, I'm English, the ue matters :P) triggers.
PS3 still only a cut-price BR player...
The listed UK price is £250. so if you use the £:$ at the current rate of 1.65 you get £180. Add 15% vat to that = £208. So there a direct £42 being lifted out your pocket. Enough for an extra game.
Or in other words... or erm... numbers: Americans would be paying $412.5 for the $300 machine.
Or 37.5% more expensive.
What was their reason exactly?
"Three hundred dollars in the US - that'll mean three hundred quid, then."
It seems highly unlikely this will translate to £300, as the current price is (was) £300.
They have, however, done the magical translation of $299 = 299 euros this time around, though.
so it should be a similar price in the shops. The real shame is that it LOOKS so much cheaper with the matte finish. And that no, you can't stand it on its end, unless you buy the special stand, which is a pure money grab. However, if the old-timey 80GB machines come down in price as well...
1. You can still mount it sideways - it comes with a cradle for doing so.
2. Sony Pictures do not own Sony Computer Entertainment - they are both independent subsidiaries of Sony. Yes there will be some influence from on high that affects both, but aside from the inclusion of very capable Blu-ray playback, the PS3 is very much a credible games console and remains so.
3. Slim PS3 will be £250 here, not £300.
With you on this. I do love my PS3, but if I had to buy it again I'd still buy one of the older, bigger ones. Higher power draw, true, but more options - such as Linux - and it does look muuuch nicer. I like the old PS3 logo. It looks excellent on the glossy black background.
Or at least it would if my cats would stop sitting on it.
now my 3rd xbox has blown up and Im selling all the peripherals for it a slim line ps3 might be good in my bedroom. I bought the original the day it was released and love it. Contrary to some of the opinions above, I prefer teh ps3 controller, although thats probably because I had a ps2 for so long.
Personally I dont care about the linux bit, neither, I suspect do 99.9999% of PS3 owners. firmware 3 would be a nice upgrade.
I am wondering if the hard drive will be as easy to upgrade in the slim line version? The ability to drop in a new HD with no warranty stuff or any of the crap you have to go through to upgrade/hack an xbox 360 was a definate winner on the original ps3 and now that Im going to get a Play TV to replace my Sky (sky sucks, someone keeps strimming through the cable in my flat as well) being able to drop new harddrives in at will is a big plus.
also the fact that I havent had to replace my ps3 every 3-9 months like I did my xbox makes me happy.
sony's gone and gimped the playstation, their choices reflect disdain for their customers. they promised on launch that this console would be about value, and things like linux and backwards compatibility were used to sell people on the damn machine. now they've removed it all, and i'm sure they are hoping to sell more ps2's by ripping out any hope of support for backwards comparability, its just a load of nonsense.
"The sleeker PS3 will hit stores September 1 for $300 in North America, Europe, and Asia. Sony also announced it will drop the prices of current 80GB and 160GB models to $300 and $400 respectively, beginning August 18."
So you can either choose the current 80 GB model now, or wait two weeks and have the new slimmed-down version with a larger 120 GB hard drive for the same price? Me thinks they won't sell many 80 GB models, unless someone's made a reporting error.
Looks less like a cross between a betamax VCR and a bread-bin now. And the price-cut makes the comparison harder. I have a 1TB NAS in the study and am looking at the best/easiest way to get ripped DVD's (my own - mainly kids ones) onto the big telly in the living room. I'd pretty much settled on a XBox 360 arcade for about £120. With the PS3 (hopefully) between £200-250 it becomes a slightly better option - if only for the Blu-Ray.
Shame about the lack of Linux support. I'll probably buy one though.
Re. mounting it sideways, Sony will sell you a stand at extra cost:
Product name: Vertical Stand
Product code: CECH-ZS1
Included: Vertical Stand （CECH-ZS1） × 1
External dimension: Approx. 88 mm x 18 mm x 260 mm (width × height × length)
Mass: Approx. 115g
Supports: CECH-2000 series*
* The Vertical Stand is for the new PS3 system (CECH-2000 series) and cannot be used on the current model.
http://uk.playstation.com/games-media/news/articles/detail/item229653/Entertainment-on-PS3-has-a-new-look/
We have video import duty which the lovely EU charge all manufacturers. Its around 40% that those robbing EU policticans take from them forcing our pricing up
And they say they are fair to the consumer, but spare a thought for Norway as they don't have that tax but still pay the same as us
The problem is not exchange rates. It's morons who get their education from the Internet.
The US price is EXCLUDING TAX
The UK price (£249) is including 15% tax
The UK (and Euro) prices all include the levvy on non-EU manufacturered goods.
It's not Sony's fault any of these things. Infact almost all consumer goods have the same problems. However in the internet age, there are no morons that think that at US-UK translation is as simple as multiplying it by the exchange rate. These people are destined to work at McDonalds, I just hope the don't give me the wrong change when I pay in Euros...
I had a PS3 for about 6 months. Apart from watching Blu-Ray movies I didn't use it for much else. Possibly the odd play on Gran Turismo. I did manually upgrade the Hard Disk, but it was a bit of an expensive white elephant. (I have an Xbox which is ultimately a much better games console)
I ended up getting a much better Sony BDP-S550 from Amazon (for a very very cheap price - at the time £10 less than the S350! Methinks they messed up the price) to watch Blu-Ray films on, and sold the PS3.
As it happens, all the Sony Blu-Ray players are designed so you can't stack anything on top of them. The BDP-S550 and S350 are so shallow depth-wise, you cannot put anything on top of them - they have to sit on the top of the stack.
Just get the New Ipod touch if its out in september and pay of 59p for games.
say £169 for ipod touch then that leaves you with enough money to buy 137 59p games LOL...from the £250 and its web and ipod player and ipod video too. etc etc ..
Why bother with The PS3 as its rubbish ( i have had 2 so far lol )
And yes the Xbox 360 controller is miles better and I also have it wireless on my laptop
My two son's 4 and 9 both have there own Xbox 360's the 4 year old had a wii but got upset as he wanted to play the same games his brother was...so traded in for a xbox 360 ....
They never wanted to play on the PS3 LOL...
38% markup on price over the US price for UK customers, 15% of that is VAT, so effectively the UK is being charged 23% more - that's nearly a quarter more for the PS3 for no reason whatsoever.
That alone is enough to put me off buying it, I'd rather choose not to be completely and utterly taken for a mug personally, especially as the new UK price is still higher than what the XBox 360 was 3 years ago (You could get it for £229.99 back then).
@MarkOne
Then it seems every single manufacturer/vendor seems to forget to mention the tax issue.
And besides, who cares whether it is the government or sony's greed, what we complain about is how cheap electronic things are on the other side of the Atlantic compared do Europe and specifically to the UK.
And it is not just the consoles or the computers.
Avoid the Xbox, it's horrible. It's loud as hell, ugly and likely to be no end of troubles. You are also rewarding Microsoft for screwing consumers over so badly... Reward them, and they do it next time too...
Spend the extra and get the PS3, you get Blu-Ray, Wifi and free online gaming that more than makes up for the price difference. My 80GB is almost silent in operation. The new slims have a further 34% power consumption reduction (down to 80w), meaning it should run totally silently, and saving quote alot on leccy bills (the Xbox360 is 180w by comparison as it's still lumbered with a hybrid 90nm/65nm mix of parts). 100w a year difference when you use 4hrs a day works out about £15 a year saving in leccy bills...
I have a second generation 40GB PS3. It looks great with its shiny finish, especially when on its side next to a plasma TV. This new PS3 slim looks like a cheap piece of rubbish. I would only buy one if you cant get hold of one of the classier looking existing units.
The new unit will reduce production cost and price, and is a sad reflection of the need to cut costs.
So, Sony aren't screwing customers by removing previously existing functionality from the new PS3....
BTW the power-saving potential (equating to about 1p per hour of usage based on your sums) is not really anything to get excited about is it ? (unless you are a tree hugger, very tight or a bit sad )
Considering that you claim the 360 is "horrible. It's loud as hell, ugly and likely to be no end of troubles" it does pretty well to keep selling in the volumes that it does - maybe it's because even though it is a flawed product it just gives a better user experience (without having a premium price attached for blu-ray techonogy that a lot of people don't give two fucks about )
The major design flaw with the original PS3 was that it can't output a high-definition soundtrack without decoding and downmixing it into something that is frankly a bit poo.
Hence why it hasn't been a popular choice as a BluRay player amongst those who want the full high-def experience. Perhaps that was a shrewd move by Sony in order to shift standalone players to people who had already bought PS3s, I dunno.
Has the new PS3 had this error fixed, or does it still taunt you with high-def pictures whilst playing back standard-def sound?
This post has been deleted by its author
Ah, the Sony Defence Force has arrived. I'm surprised it took so long.
FWIW, I personally think the PS3 slim is ugly and looks cheap. I applaud Sony for reducing power requirements and bulk, but dropping Linux support and ignoring the calls for backward compatibility is a bad move IMO. However, MS are talking about raising the price of the 360 so maybe it's just silly season.
I'll stick with my first gen one.
Reassuringly heavy/solid
Looks very pretty (flame-on)
Inaudible
Acting as my blu-ray player
Pipes my glorious 2TB collection sitting on a NAS in a cupboard
Oh, and it plays games too :)
3 things I'd say about the new one:
It looks cheap and ugly
Has it addressed the "no USB ports at the back" - my GH dongle looks ridiculous hanging out the front
I could care less about Linux support
You bunch of bellend-tards complaining about losing the feature to install a different OS (probably Linux). So what if it has gone from the firmware in this device? Whats the point in complaining about it? They only way you would miss it is if you already have a PS3 and replaced it with the slimline version.
is this really the most important feature?
I think the only reason I wont replace my PS3 with the PS3 slim is down to the fact I have an old school 60gb version that plays PS2 games. If the new console did this, I would probably get one.
Saying that, a fool and his money are easily parted. So I will probably go get one anyway...
There is no "audio problem". There clearly is an idiot problem however. As it's been explained to you numerous times here, how uncompressed PCM is actually better than bitreamed, and still you don't get it, and continue with your uneducated BS...
It's hillarious how the Xbots have come out in force today, clearly the PS3 Slim is really worrying them... And not without reason. For the same price as a 360 Elite, (or £100 more than a Xbox Arcade that needs £90 spending on it to make it useful), you can get a PS3 thats infinately better build, massively quieter, and far better spec'd with Blu-Ray, Wifi and free online gaming for the same money as a tired an ugly looking 2005 tech Xbox... Did I mention the far superior exclusive PS3 games lineup this season and into next year?
Basically it's more fun to play on. I know it's not hardcore gaming, but that not the point to me. It's FUN and ultimatly thats what drives sales.
I notice most Tesco stores are now only selling Nintendo stuff in store, so either thats a really good marketing deal by the big N (or slackness on the part of Sony and MS) or they know what sells and cater to that market. Not sure which it is but if the UK's major supermarket isn't supporting 360 or PS3, then the sales from the impulse buy / pester power of kids will drive programmers to the Nintendo platform where games do sell and sell by the bucketload (and yess a lot of them are shovelware of the finest degree)
Indeed there is an idiot problem. Perhaps you should learn about these things instead of just regurgitating what is repeated on internet fora.
"As it's been explained to you numerous times here, how uncompressed PCM is actually better than bitreamed"
Agreed, you might find, under optimum circumstances, that your LPCM stream is bitmatched (albeit, not synchronised) to the audio portion of your TrueHD stream, however you are neglecting the importance of the metadata that is lost when using a PS3 as an ersatz high-definition player.
Please explain where your presumption that LPCM is better comes from. Kindly respond in a less stupid fashion though.
For the record I am not an "XBot". I own neither XBox or Playstation, and whilst I would consider buying a PS3 if and only if Sony have fixed the aforementioned fault, you needn't worry about me taking your place as happy-pierre at your PS3 fanboy meets.
LOL @ SDF.
> " tired an ugly looking 2005 tech Xbox"
http://www.pcvsconsole.com/comparisons/xbox-360-vs-ps3-gpu/ - Seems that 2005 tech beats 2006 tech.
Of course who would want a an ugly 2005 box when they can have an ugly 2009 'slim' box?
> "Did I mention the far superior exclusive PS3 games lineup this season and into next year?"
Yes you did. You mentioned it last year and the year before that. It still hasn't arrived though.
Adding Play TV gives you a twin tuner freeview PVR with built in CD/DVD/mp3/Bluray player, web browser & media streamer for less than £300, which pisses on pretty much everything available off-the-shelf in the world of home entertainment at the moment.
Or at least I hope it does because that is what I want to buy it for; and I might even play the odd game on it.
Seriously hated the xbox. A consumer product shouldnt crash like that so easily. THREE boxes in 2 1/2 years is crazy. Even though this last one was in warranty I just couldnt be arsed to replace it, so binned it.
The new generation xboxes are too loud to watch movies on, if you want them to last you will need to buy the extra cooling fans, which makes it even louder. The CD drive is insanely loud and the fact that you cant upgrade your harddrive without paying a fortune is a pain. It took me 2 minutes to upgrade my old 60Gb to 120Gb on the PS3 and I didnt have to bugger the warranty. I can backup the whole harddrive to an external drive, saving anything I have bought.
Im an IT guy and the damned explanation to upgrade an xbox 360 drive had me reaching for my Jack daniels! You shouldnt need to hack a box, just to upgrade it's storage. I also hate the fact that I paid for a 20 Gig drive an donly get 13 Gig of it to use.
Yes, teh new Sony is a bit ugly, but then it's all in the eye and if it IS quieter, awesome. No massive brick of a transformer sat on my floor either. My battery backed up extension box would scream every time I plugged my xbox in.
Oh yeah...screw linux as well. XP beats linux hands down in any environment.
Not to mention that the 360 versions of most games are STILL coming with better texturing and frame rates. To add insult to injury, publishers are regularly stiffing PS3 users an extra £10 for the privilege.
Got both consoles and after three of them I can definitively say the 360 is a heap 'o shite build-wise; but Microsoft have done their homework and delivered the better console (oooh I'm gonna hate myself for this) experience.
I like my gadgets to do as much for me as possible. This is why I made sure when I last bought a PC that it could be used for high end games, for Windows development and for x86 Linux development.
For some time I have wanted to buy a cheap PS3 and wanted it to similarily do a lot for me. Now without the possibility of learning about the Cell Processor and about Power PC Linux I might as well buy an XBox 360. After all as a result of the XBOX 360's popularity the XBOX 360 has more and better games than the PS3.
Do marketing people read these posts? Probably not. However if Sony's marketing people do read these posts then I would like to remind them that one reason for the PC's success was that it could perform many different tasks. Companies can buy cheap PCs for serious uses because home users buying PCs to run games forced down the price of PC hardware.
WTB...
1. Ram expansion
2. Access to raw hardware thru other OS's. (not thru' that hypervisor crap).
3. Better support for DVI monitors out of the box. I use a HDMI to plug it to an LCD TV but would prefer to be able to plug it into just any monitor with any given resolution.
4. More cell/PPC innovation. I hate intel domination.
I agree that the PS3 needs more RAM. IBM's most recent enhancement to the Cell Processor was to add a DDR2 RAM interface. If the PS3 slim used this chip and if its firmware was upgraded to support Linux again then a network of PS3 slim devices would represent a really useful Linux supercomputer.
More RAM would also help in the porting of XBOX 360 games to the PS3 slim. The XBOX 360 has twice as much RAM as the PS3.
Good Idea to have this availible, personally I would have liked the entire PS3 machine upgradable as I saw fit, New HDD is easy but to replace the Blu Ray is a bit of a fiddlly job or £80 to repair out of warrenty machines. I do feel the PS3 lacks RAM for certian graphics (this could just be lazy programmers), as my XBOX 360 has never had a stutter in any of the games I have played, I cannot say the same for the PS3.
I'm puzzled: what do people DO with linux on a single PS3 in their lounge? Seriously. Run VLC so they can watch AVIs or listen to MP3s off a media server? Oh wait...
The loss of back-compatibility with PS2 and PS games is, to be honest, a loss. It means more plugs, more A/V switches, and more hassles than just sliding a disc in and having it Just Work. I mourn the loss of that bit of elegance.
But I don't really care. I've already got mine.
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